50 Facts about Oxford University you probably didn’t know about

50 Facts about Oxford University you probably didn’t know about

The University of Oxford is quite frankly an institution like no other in the world. With renowned scientists to amazing inventions and scientific discoveries, there are not many other places in the world that even come close to this place.

After brainstorming for a while on the most interesting topic that we could cover about Oxford, we all agreed that the answer has been in front of us this whole time. Obviously there’s nothing more interesting in Oxford then the University itself. An institution that this whole city’s economy revolves around is an definitely a topic that is interesting by itself, but there’s so much more about this place that you might not even know about that it’s crazy.

This list is going to be long enough anyway, so without further ado here are the 100 facts about the University of Oxford that you probably didn’t know about:

The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English speaking world and it dates way back to 1096. Yes you read that right, that’s 1096 or nearly a thousand years ago.

Back in 2011 – 15% of the population of the city of Oxford were University students. This percentage is lower now as the population of the city has grown with almost from 151,000 to almost 160,000 lowering this percentage to 13%, which is still an impressive number. And if you can’t be bothered to do the math, that’s just under 22,000 students.

The University of Oxford has been around before the existence of Genghis Khan.

The University of Oxford is the 17th richest University in the world with an endowment totaling $6.3 billion or 5.05 billion GBP with the current exchange rate. Here’s a list of the other 50 wealthiest universities in the world.

There are over 140 countries that have students which are currently studying or have studied in the University of Oxford in the past 10 years.

The university of Oxford consists of 44 different colleges, each one with their own traditions and character.

The University of Oxford existed before the Aztec Empire.

There are over 80 sport clubs that you could be a part of if you study in the University of Oxford and there are some sports that you might not have even heard of, such as Ultimate Frisbee, Octopush, Korfball and others.

The university students are required to wear a traditional “sub fusc” uniform during their exams.

The pub where famous people such as J.R.R Tolkien, Lewis Carol and C.S Lewis still exists and you could have a pint where they did.

There are over 100 libraries that students could take advantage of while studying in the university of Oxford. The larges one is the Bodleian library, which is over 400 years old.

Einstein’s black board where he discovered that E=MC² is still preserved in the Museum of History of Science, with the original writing of the formula from Einstein himself.

The famous extinct bird Dodo’s remains could still be seen in the University.

There are over 50 Nobel Prize winners that have graduated from the University of Oxford.

Twenty four of the Nobel Prize winners which graduated from the University have received the title Sir.

There have been 27 prime ministers of the United Kingdom that have graduated from the University of Oxford including the current prime minster – Theresa May.

Putting aside the 27 prime ministers of the UK, there have been over 30 other world leaders which have taken some sort of education in the university of Oxford. The list includes names such as Bill Clinton, Indira Ghandi, Tony Abbott (former prime minister of Australia) and others.

Over 125 Olympic gold medalists have graduated from the university, which is simply another reason to believe that not only

Over 20% of the Oxford University undergrads earn more then 30,000 pounds a year, which is 4000 more then the UK average.

The most famous scientist that has graduated from the University of Oxford and is still alive today is the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

The University of Oxford has seen some of the mos famous actors in the world acting in it’s drama classes. The list consists of A-Star celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Rosamund Pike and more recently Emma Watson (which was a Brown University student, but took 1 year in the University of Oxford)

The famous Great Hall of the Harry Potter movies was inspired by The Hall of Christ Church in the Oxford University.

The word snob actually originated in Oxford. It comes from the latin “sine nobilitate” which roughly translates to “without nobility”. It makes sense as the people studying in the University of Oxford were usually noble people from distinguished families and when a person who wasn’t from such a family studied there it would have been noticed by the others.

Women were not allowed to get degrees from the University of Oxford until 1920.

The stairs of the Great Hall of the Christ Church were the inspiration behind the stairs of the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Alice in Wonderland is partially based on Alice Pleasance Liddell, which was one of the daughters of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church.

The Oxford University botanic garden is the oldest one that exists in the world.

The Botanic garden is also the most compact,but yet diverse botanic garden in the world.

The only graffiti that are allowed at the Oxford college walls is to celebrate rowing victories over rival colleges’ boat crews. Some of those graffiti are enormous and require scaffolding to execute.

The professors of the university sit on a table which is 6 inches higher then the table where students eat. This symbolizes the higher position of the professors in the academical world. Said table is called “The High Table”

The Bodleian library is second in the UK in terms of books it holds only to the British Library.

Another scene from Harry Potter which takes place in the University of Oxford is the the one in the Goblet of Fire where this happens : – Draco Malfoy: [lounging up in a tree] Father and I have a bet, you see. I don’t think you’re gonna last ten minutes in this tournament. [jumps down from tree] He disagrees. He thinks you won’t last five. Wikiquotes

The University of Oxford is a major institution not only in Britain, but worldwide. That’s why it comes as a surprise to many people, that the University is actually private

The Oxford University is the home of the oldest museum in the Uk called the The Ashmolean Museum. It is also the oldest University museum in the world dating back to 1683.

The Oxford university press is actually the second oldest in the entire world. Over 6000 new books are published there on a yearly basis and that makes it the biggest university press in the world by the number of publications.

The University of Oxford has been name one of the six university super-brands in the world alongside Harvard University, MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology), The University of Cambridge, University of California and Berkeley.

According to a recent study published by Tinder, the University of Oxford has the second hottest men in the country. The university has the 2nd highest number of right-swipes (likes) on Tinder across the country.

The Oxford University campus is ranked number 2 in the list of best looking campuses in the UK, only beaten by their major rivals from Cambridge.

T.E.Lawrence also known throughout the world as Lawrence of Arabia is an Oxford University alumni.

Another writer that is actually even more famous then the aforementioned J.R.R. Tolkien, who graduated from the University of Oxford is Oscar Wilde.

There are more literal saints that came out of the University of Oxford than any other university in the world. 12 People that have been pronounced saints by the church have studied in the University of Oxford.

Thomas Coryat an Oxford University attendant who later decided that he prefers the life of an adventurer is the person who introduced the table fork and the umbrella to the United Kingdom.

There’s a fictional alternate universe version of the University of Oxford described in the novel His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.

The serial comma is a controversial practice of writing that is part of the house style of Oxford University Press. This is the reason why in many places in Britain it is referred to as the Oxford comma.

The University of Oxford had it’s own police force, often referred to as “The Bulldogs” from 1829 and 2003. They were easily recognizable by their bowler hats which formed part of their uniform.

There are a total of 7 museums in the University of Oxford, which is the same number of museums as the Country of Luxembourg.

There’s a tradition that not every student in Oxford goes through, but is interesting non the less. It’s called trashing the student and it is done when said student goes through his/her final exam. The students are usually covered in glitter, food and champagne, or whatever else is present to celebrate the final step of their academic education.

There are more published writers per square mile near Oxford then anywhere else in the UK and the university of Oxford is a big reason for this.

Over 60% of the grad students of the University of Oxford come from outside the UK, but there aren’t exact figures on how many of them are from the EU and how many are from outside the EU.

The tuition fees for students from outside the UK and the EU are almost 30% higher and are on average around 14,000 pounds, compared to the 9000 pounds that a UK or EU citizen would have to pay on an annual basis.

With so much history behind it and considering the things that the University of Oxford has given to the world, we simply had to try and give back to the people studying there, which are probably going to shape the world we are going to live in the future. That’s why we offer a special discount to students and university employees for our end of tenancy cleaning.

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